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EDMONTON—With family reunion hugs out of the way, Toronto’s ancestral Edmontonians will now get down to business.

That would be the business of drilling the Oil even further into the depths of the Western Conference in the second confrontation this month between these two clubs, the Leafs peering down from the top of their Eastern Conference perch.

It’s a lofty view, rarely experienced by the blue-and-white, enjoying both team-wide and individual success.

“I feel good personally and I feel that as a group we’ve done a lot of real good things,” said Dion Phaneuf. “But we’ve also done some things we’d like to work on. It’s early in the year but overall we feel pretty good about our game and I feel good about my game personally.”

The local boy and way-back-when former Calgary Flame — though locals will forgive that — arrived in town with two goals and four assists on his 2013-14 resume, plus typically high ice minutes. And, for the moment anyway, the equally-typical captain-bashing in Leaf Nation has been dialed down. But just give it a couple of minutes.

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Toronto — which needed OT to dismiss 6-5 a fortnight ago, after Joffrey Lupul tied the score with under a minute left in regulation time — actually have posted a fine record over Edmonton in their infrequent excursions Westward-Ho in the past few years, taking four out of five at Rexall Place.

Oilers coach Dallas Eakins, late of the Marlies, described his club’s recent visit to the Air Canada Centre as “one of the most entertaining games we’ve played this year.”

Of course, Toronto’s dominance of Edmonton has more to do with that club’s chronic ineptitude over ever-rebuilding season, a franchise that hasn’t been to the playoffs in seven years. With Toronto finally making it over that hump last spring, Edmonton now assumes the ignominious distinction of longest playoff drought in the NHL. Also, one of only two teams in the league — the other being, um, the Leafs — that was outshot by an average of six shots per game last season.

The two clubs are currently vying for the same hideously out-shot stat-splat thus far this season. But the Oilers are coming off a hard-earned single point from a 2-1 shootout loss to the Kings on Sunday in Los Angeles, behind the goaltending of farmhand Richard Bachman. Summoned from Oklahoma with only hours to spare, Bachman stopped 47 shots.

No. 1 Edmonton netminder Devan Dubnyk has been hobbled with a sore ankle and back-up Jason LaBarbera is struggling with a .857 save percentage. Bachman gets the start against Toronto.

Joffrey Lupul was on the ice for the morning skate, but it’s not known whether he’ll play. Lupul hurt his foot in practice last week after blocking a shot in practice.

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